Before I began a serious accent through meditation and discipline I did try psychedelics, mushrooms and LSD and something a shaman gave numerous times but I am not sure what it was. I tried all of these multiple times. I experimented for five years in that way. It did not give me what the path of discipline has given me. My experience (which is only mine) is that the psychedelics gave me a warped version of the real thing. The changes that came by the way of discipline have been much more permanent and effective and maturing. I don't think there is a chemical replacement for hard work, dedication, devotion, perseverance etc... That is my experience which as I said is only mine.

There are saints who attain perfect love without ever having a mystical experience and lots of personality types that are like this who should not be excluded from this conversation. Whole books have been written about the differences between mystical personality types and non mystical types. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

I have been exposed to literally multiple 100's of people for over twenty years who have taken the path very seriously this is my life and I am exposed to many ongoing spiritual communities. Many did psychedelics and a path of discipline, many did only psychedelics, and many only did the path of discipline. I am personally more impressed with the character of people who have done no psychedelics or both psychedelics and discipline. They are more grounded, and honestly just have more integrity and the deep kind of stability and inner strength that you only find in people that have put in some work-- there is a purification in struggle and difficulty. Again if I had to choose between those two ten year periods it would be an easy choice.

It is not uncommon for people who have only taken the path of psychedelics to enter into various spiritual communities that I am involved in. With only rare exceptions they just cannot hang with the kind of maturity you find in dedicated and disciplined groups of people. One of my shamanic teachers who was quite gifted in that path and a very effective healer cheated on his own wife with one of his students girlfriends!! He also did not see the need for the hard work part.... I have met too many people like that to be a fan of the psychedelic path generally speaking although of course there are exceptions.

On the point of Jesus it is wrong to say there is nothing he brought that was not there before. Buddha and Lao tzu had an astounding degree of enlightenment but it was an experience with and im--personal state of being (not with the dimension of God who knows and loves.) Jesus brought the teaching of how to be in union with the dimension of God that is personal-- that does know and love. I am not saying one is better than another but there are differences that cannot be ignored here. Buddha taught that you come into enlightenment solely through your own effort. Jesus taught the way into union with God by way of Gods love, by way of grace. I have tried both approaches and they are not the same. Again not making a value judgment between them but just pointing out the differences.

Again I assume your path is valid and that you are not like the examples I have given just for the sake of generosity and goodwill. I mean that.

namahshaman wrote:Of course the idea that Christ was a personified symbol of the mushroom sounds insane and silly by todays cultural standards.

And also by by first-century Roman standards.Your claim is not supported by the availability of historical evidence.

Well, in addition to Allegro's book, The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross, you have his, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Myth, The Holy Mushroom Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity by J.R. Irvin, Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna, The Mushroom in Christian Art: The Identity of Jesus in the Development of Christianity by John Rush, Mushrooms and Mankind: The Impact of Mushrooms on Human Consciousness and Religion by James Arthur, Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy by Clark Heinrich, Sacred Mushroom/Holy Grail: The Long-lost Origin of Our Most Intriguing Legend by Terry Atkinson, etc.

Point being, there are many scholars who have been saying this for many years now, and there are piles of books on the subject, many of them written by accomplished, well-received scholars.

namahshaman wrote:Of course the idea that Christ was a personified symbol of the mushroom sounds insane and silly by todays cultural standards.

And also by by first-century Roman standards.Your claim is not supported by the availability of historical evidence.

Well, in addition to Allegro's book, The Sacred Mushroom and The Cross, you have his, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Myth, The Holy Mushroom Evidence of Mushrooms in Judeo-Christianity by J.R. Irvin, Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna, The Mushroom in Christian Art: The Identity of Jesus in the Development of Christianity by John Rush, Mushrooms and Mankind: The Impact of Mushrooms on Human Consciousness and Religion by James Arthur, Magic Mushrooms in Religion and Alchemy by Clark Heinrich, Sacred Mushroom/Holy Grail: The Long-lost Origin of Our Most Intriguing Legend by Terry Atkinson, etc.

Point being, there are many scholars who have been saying this for many years now, and there are piles of books on the subject, many of them written by accomplished, well-received scholars.

Plus...again, without direct experience, how do you know?

I don't believe that Allegro's work was well-received at all. All I can do is point you to the primary sources authored within the first 400 years of Christianity regarding Christology. If there was a mushroom Jesus cult, I probably would have a reference to it in my library.

See, the trouble is that it is highly improbable that documentation about a secret cult prior to, during, or after the first-century would have survived when documentation on very powerful and widespread challenges to the Pro-Nicene or Proto-Orthodoxy are lacking thorough documentation. But the historical evidence for Jesus' human existence is sufficient for the majority of historians. So that premise, as far as I'm concerned, is a non-starter. You already demonstrated you can't be convinced otherwise, so there's no point in discussing it.

You are arguing from an unfalsifiable position by claiming revealed knowledge. I posit that there is no dose which would satisfy your criteria if one consumed it and did not share your perspective. Allegory can be excruciating.

You are free to believe what you want to believe though.

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Before I began a serious accent through meditation and discipline I did try psychedelics, mushrooms and LSD and something a shaman gave numerous times but I am not sure what it was. I tried all of these multiple times. I experimented for five years in that way. It did not give me what the path of discipline has given me. My experience (which is only mine) is that the psychedelics gave me a warped version of the real thing. The changes that came by the way of discipline have been much more permanent and effective and maturing. I don't think there is a chemical replacement for hard work, dedication, devotion, perseverance etc... That is my experience which as I said is only mine.

There are saints who attain perfect love without ever having a mystical experience and lots of personality types that are like this who should not be excluded from this conversation. Whole books have been written about the differences between mystical personality types and non mystical types. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

I have been exposed to literally multiple 100's of people for over twenty years who have taken the path very seriously this is my life and I am exposed to many ongoing spiritual communities. Many did psychedelics and a path of discipline, many did only psychedelics, and many only did the path of discipline. I am personally more impressed with the character of people who have done no psychedelics or both psychedelics and discipline. They are more grounded, and honestly just have more integrity and the deep kind of stability and inner strength that you only find in people that have put in some work-- there is a purification in struggle and difficulty. Again if I had to choose between those two ten year periods it would be an easy choice.

It is not uncommon for people who have only taken the path of psychedelics to enter into various spiritual communities that I am involved in. With only rare exceptions they just cannot hang with the kind of maturity you find in dedicated and disciplined groups of people. One of my shamanic teachers who was quite gifted in that path and a very effective healer cheated on his own wife with one of his students girlfriends!! He also did not see the need for the hard work part.... I have met too many people like that to be a fan of the psychedelic path generally speaking although of course there are exceptions.

On the point of Jesus it is wrong to say there is nothing he brought that was not there before. Buddha and Lao tzu had an astounding degree of enlightenment but it was an experience with and im--personal state of being (not with the dimension of God who knows and loves.) Jesus brought the teaching of how to be in union with the dimension of God that is personal-- that does know and love. I am not saying one is better than another but there are differences that cannot be ignored here. Buddha taught that you come into enlightenment solely through your own effort. Jesus taught the way into union with God by way of Gods love, by way of grace. I have tried both approaches and they are not the same. Again not making a value judgment between them but just pointing out the differences.

Again I assume your path is valid and that you are not like the examples I have given just for the sake of generosity and goodwill. I mean that.

None of these people had anything useful to share in my opinion. Yes, these people (if they even existed in the form that most perceive) were and still are hugely popular, but they really didn't know anything near what anyone with an internet connection can find out in a few seconds. Even in the realm of "spirituality", neuroscience has told us tons more information and insight into consciousness and being that eons of philosophers. I don't understand why in the 21st century we look back to people who didn't know where the sun went at night for wisdom. I understand the desire to believe and the concept of religious precedent, but it's hard to understand how we have come so frighteningly far so fast, yet we still have to hold on to tradition and myth such as the Buddha. have no problem with buddhism, it's the least negative out of all the religions, but there was no Buddha. The Buddha was an ideal, like heaven, not a real entity.

I think it's mainly our interest in history and to know what came before and to idealize the past and antiquity and the powerful force of tradition. Useless tradition and myth endures because it came with knowledge, which is useful. If an elder tells the young to wash their hands before eating and to say a prayer, the utilitarian sanitization is tied to the meaningless myth, as are all of the aspects of culture that are simply indulgences and obsessive need to hold on to the past. The elders give us little bit of invaluable knowledge along with a lot of arbitrary culture and myth.

And I think the negativity towards psychedelics are that they are a shortcut. And a shortcut that's just as good if not better than the long way. Honestly, a night of mushroom tripping can be like years of intensive psychotherapy. Everything comes to the forefront and you are forced to deal with it, and it's a cathartic experience unlike any other. Of course it's all up to the individual. What you call maturity might be just what you like, people that are like minded to you. When you are in social groups, people who take psychedelics think differently, not only from the herd but also from each other. Perhaps cheating and experimenting outside the confines of the institution of marriage is a path to spiritual maturity. Free love and all that. The herd always wants you to conform to it's standards, and those that don't are ostracized. That's the way it's always been. Krishnamurti's "free mind" is one free of social attachment.

I thought that about Jesus and Lao Tzu and the Buddha (historical reality of these beings notwithstanding) also during the whole five years I was exploring psychedelics and also during much of the ten years when I was having those intense experiences. Some of that might have had to do with my upbringing which did not have any belief in Jesus being divine or special in any way. That changed for me though at which point the teachings of Jesus and to a lesser extenc Lao tzu have become profoundly meaningful. Lets not forget that what psychedelics can do at their very best for ten hours or so while you are on them-- many of the saints have attained permanent access to. Think about that and let it sink in--- high end mystical teaching leads a person into permanent access to those states of being- higher states actually. Contained within the New Testament, cultural and scientific limitations notwithstanding, are a means to attain those states permanently. Some of the insights on how to do this are absolutely not something one just stumbles upon-- they are the fruit of many years and lifetimes of insight and work.

You said--

"What you call maturity might be just what you like, people that are like minded to you. When you are in social groups, people who take psychedelics think differently, not only from the herd but also from each other. Perhaps cheating and experimenting outside the confines of the institution of marriage is a path to spiritual maturity."

First lets remember that I have taken psychedelics and about a third of the people I know have also. Secondly I really don't think you mean this but if you do then I think it demonstrates the lack of integrity I am talking about. If you are at the point where you think making commitments and vows to one another and then secretly breaking those vows is OK then I would like to sell you all my synths but just send me the money first ok? I promise to send the synths later.... If you think it's ok that this guy had sex with his students girfriend then there is something wrong. Think of the damage done to my shamanic teachers student when he found out that his teacher, the man he so looked up to and just had sex with his girlfriend -- think of the abuse of power in that unequal relationship with the girlfriend.

Ultimately though I only brought all of this up to demonstrate that it is wrong to assume psychedelic influence wherever we find intense mysticism springing up. That's really my only point here. I studied shamanism with a woman who went all over the world to study it, she went to south america and tibet and alaska and also less exoticaly right here in America. Her whole life has been dedicated to this practice. She told me that maybe 5% of the shamans she had studied with had ever used psychedelics-- the rest had come in through journeying. Psychedelics are not the only or the best way to get there-- they are just a way-- but more importantly it is wrong to assume the use of psychedelics every time we see intense mysticism.

One of the top 5 most intensely mystical persons I have ever known is a gay Christian mystic who became my teacher and who has never done psychedelics. To this date I have met very few people with as intense and permanent access to these very high states of consciousness. I am not trying to establish that this proves anything about one way being better than another but just pointing it out as a way of showing there are many examples of intense mysticism without the use of them.

unfiltered37 wrote:None of these people had anything useful to share in my opinion. Yes, these people (if they even existed in the form that most perceive) were and still are hugely popular, but they really didn't know anything near what anyone with an internet connection can find out in a few seconds. Even in the realm of "spirituality", neuroscience has told us tons more information and insight into consciousness and being that eons of philosophers. I don't understand why in the 21st century we look back to people who didn't know where the sun went at night for wisdom. I understand the desire to believe and the concept of religious precedent, but it's hard to understand how we have come so frighteningly far so fast, yet we still have to hold on to tradition and myth such as the Buddha. have no problem with buddhism, it's the least negative out of all the religions, but there was no Buddha. The Buddha was an ideal, like heaven, not a real entity.

I think it's mainly our interest in history and to know what came before and to idealize the past and antiquity and the powerful force of tradition. Useless tradition and myth endures because it came with knowledge, which is useful. If an elder tells the young to wash their hands before eating and to say a prayer, the utilitarian sanitization is tied to the meaningless myth, as are all of the aspects of culture that are simply indulgences and obsessive need to hold on to the past. The elders give us little bit of invaluable knowledge along with a lot of arbitrary culture and myth.

And I think the negativity towards psychedelics are that they are a shortcut. And a shortcut that's just as good if not better than the long way. Honestly, a night of mushroom tripping can be like years of intensive psychotherapy. Everything comes to the forefront and you are forced to deal with it, and it's a cathartic experience unlike any other. Of course it's all up to the individual. What you call maturity might be just what you like, people that are like minded to you. When you are in social groups, people who take psychedelics think differently, not only from the herd but also from each other. Perhaps cheating and experimenting outside the confines of the institution of marriage is a path to spiritual maturity. Free love and all that. The herd always wants you to conform to it's standards, and those that don't are ostracized. That's the way it's always been. Krishnamurti's "free mind" is one free of social attachment.

Well said, unfiltered37, well said indeed. As more and more scientific investigation takes place, we're nearing a point where we can just sit back and let the facts prove the benefits of psychedelics to the naysayers.

I thought that about Jesus and Lao Tzu and the Buddha (historical reality of these beings notwithstanding) also during the whole five years I was exploring psychedelics and also during much of the ten years when I was having those intense experiences. Some of that might have had to do with my upbringing which did not have any belief in Jesus being divine or special in any way. That changed for me though at which point the teachings of Jesus and to a lesser extenc Lao tzu have become profoundly meaningful. Lets not forget that what psychedelics can do at their very best for ten hours or so while you are on them-- many of the saints have attained permanent access to. Think about that and let it sink in--- high end mystical teaching leads a person into permanent access to those states of being- higher states actually. Contained within the New Testament, cultural and scientific limitations notwithstanding, are a means to attain those states permanently. Some of the insights on how to do this are absolutely not something one just stumbles upon-- they are the fruit of many years and lifetimes of insight and work.

You said--

"What you call maturity might be just what you like, people that are like minded to you. When you are in social groups, people who take psychedelics think differently, not only from the herd but also from each other. Perhaps cheating and experimenting outside the confines of the institution of marriage is a path to spiritual maturity."

First lets remember that I have taken psychedelics and about a third of the people I know have also. Secondly I really don't think you mean this but if you do then I think it demonstrates the lack of integrity I am talking about. If you are at the point where you think making commitments and vows to one another and then secretly breaking those vows is OK then I would like to sell you all my synths but just send me the money first ok? I promise to send the synths later.... If you think it's ok that this guy had sex with his students girfriend then there is something wrong. Think of the damage done to my shamanic teachers student when he found out that his teacher, the man he so looked up to and just had sex with his girlfriend -- think of the abuse of power in that unequal relationship with the girlfriend.

Ultimately though I only brought all of this up to demonstrate that it is wrong to assume psychedelic influence wherever we find intense mysticism springing up. That's really my only point here. I studied shamanism with a woman who went all over the world to study it, she went to south america and tibet and alaska and also less exoticaly right here in America. Her whole life has been dedicated to this practice. She told me that maybe 5% of the shamans she had studied with had ever used psychedelics-- the rest had come in through journeying. Psychedelics are not the only or the best way to get there-- they are just a way-- but more importantly it is wrong to assume the use of psychedelics every time we see intense mysticism.

One of the top 5 most intensely mystical persons I have ever known is a gay Christian mystic who became my teacher and who has never done psychedelics. To this date I have met very few people with as intense and permanent access to these very high states of consciousness. I am not trying to establish that this proves anything about one way being better than another but just pointing it out as a way of showing there are many examples of intense mysticism without the use of them.

Just because you and others you know have experimented with psychedelics, doesn't necessarily mean that any of you have actually achieved peak experience. What size doses were you all taking? Did you ever take high doses completely alone in silent darkness? Your argument here is like assuming that everyone who's ever meditated has experienced satori. And to indicate that psychedelics is a short-cut or some easier way is laughable. There is nothing easy about taking large doses alone. I've seen men who base jump off mountains and enter cage-fights tremble at the site of 10 dried grams.

However, I will agree with you that some average Joe taking a handful of caps will not result in the next guru or messiah. You're also right, almost anyone who's ever made it very far with psychedelics has done it with the addition of a certain discipline and practice, through study and meditation. Trust me, when you start eating over 5 grams, you NEED a meditation background to keep from losing your mind, haha.

The main reason it seems obvious that none of you ever took high enough doses, is that you still adhere to a specific doctrines, specific teachers, specific myths, specific guidelines, specific hierarchy, etc. There is still piety and righteousness in religion, a narrowed reality-tunnel that forces preconceived perspectives onto evolving ideas in an ever-changing world. The Zen version of enlightenment is certainly the closest to the peak psychedelic experience because it gets the great cosmic joke, it possesses and expresses humor in a way that no other religion even comes close.

Finally, of course mystical states can be reached without ingesting psychedelics, but scientifically the same chemical reactions are occurring in your brain. Without proper preparation and discipline, neither experience will deliver transcendence. A huge problem with most western religions is that they tend to separate God from human, Jesus from man, sin from grace...to still view the world with such dichotomy is further proof that peak experience has not been achieved.

I have lost interest in this conversation. I have taken very high dose and achieved peak experiences. Nothing I am going to say is going to change your mind and honestly I don't even want to change your mind. I don't even care about the topic of psychedelics-- I only entered into this part of the discussion to show that psychedelics are not the cause of all mystical religion.

Do it the way you're doing it man and may the best outcome happen for you.

I appreciate all the recent commentary that has come from this rather sorry beginning of a thread. Especially those of you who have shared from your life experiences. While I don't wish to follow that example by sharing from my own life path, may I just offer a few points to consider in this thread? Carl Jung put it quite well when he said "The difference between the Mystic and the Schizophrenic is that the Mystic knows who not to tell".

Foundation is crucial to any large or small undertaking. If you're going to scale El Capitan, you'd best have a thorough grounding in ropes and rock gear, spent quite a significant amount of time training your body, have a superior support team, be capable of significant amounts of endurance, and choose your climbing times carefully. Doing simpler climbs for many years is a common practice. Even then, you are dealing with forces so much greater than yourself that you risk your life in the process. Of course there is so much to gain in that same process that a very small percentage of our population will strive for such things.

Consider for a moment the difference between 'State' and 'Station'. 'Station' is the place we're at in our life, mostly predicated by the level to which we have developed our Being. 'State' is defined by the place we inhabit in the moment, which revolves around our 'Station'. Example: I may be your ordinary Joe, going through life, experiencing both Heaven and Hell depending on the External World and situations I find myself in. With work, I may raise my 'Station' and thus experience greater moments of Heaven and fewer moments of Hell. Raising the DC offset if you will. Alternately, I can immerse myself in negativity and thus find my life seemingly mired in Hell with few moments to look forward to. In this place, I may experience States of Hell worse that most people ever experience. One might say that "The Kingdom of Heaven is within" refers to raising one's 'Station' to the place that exemplifies Heaven for most people. At this point, descents into Hell become fewer and further between and higher States of Heaven become more commonplace. This can be called Enlightenment, though the word itself is difficult to understand without direct experience. For any path that attempt to scale spiritual heights and depths, a foundation is essential.

And finally, one more point to consider. Within the various types of Sitting or Meditation practices, there exist a spectrum which might be called 'Slow and Safe' at one end, and 'Fast and Dangerous' at the other, as well as everything in between. At the Slow end of things, one can embark on this path with little to no direction. The path itself becomes the teacher as long as one stays open to the inner promptings. At the middle points along this spectrum, it behooves one to find a teacher to help navigate the terrain so as to not spend half your life going down paths that end up not being fruitful and having to backtrack (or worse, refusing to backtrack because of the sheer amount of time spent along a certain path). And at the farthest end of the spectrum, a guide or teacher becomes essential. Mind altering substances can be found at all these points along the continuum as well. Even without the use of psychedelics, you risk doing irreversible damage to your body and being when attempting the faster tracks of meditation practice. Again, foundation is crucial with any undertaking.

For me, I continually ask myself the same question when I meet a person on 'the Path'... am I impressed with how they exist in this world? Does this person's Station resonate inside of me with truth and beauty? Is their life inspiring and elevating to others they come in contact with? One of my favourite aphorisms is "Surround yourself with kind and cheerful people".

Thats a great post man. I was exposed to something similar from Ken Wilbur who uses the terms states and stages but I cannot ever remember which means which in his system That understanding helped me a lot because I was experiencing very high peak experiences but the totality of my life was not in those places at all. It was very helpful to discover that this is normal as I was getting attached to the states? and confusing them for stages.

On the topic of danger coming from mystical states. I think that is very interesting because I have know three people personally who did great harm to themselves by going to fast into those places. One of them had the same teacher I did years ago and my teacher told him he was not ready to raise those energies but rather than listen he went ahead with it anyway. He was using certain breathing techniques to go there. While doing so he had some kind of Kundalini experience and the energies went way, way up. Instead of bringing him enlightenment it amplified his emotional and mental disorder. He began to hear voices and not the good kind either. I lost touch with him but then after a few years ran into him again and he was still experiencing hallucinations or psychic awareness, you decide. But what he was seeing and hearing was very dark.

My first teacher just accidentally got into a profoundly high state of being that lasted about a year and his wife thought he had gone crazy because he was seeing and feeling oceans of energy and spiritual being and such and she checked him into a psych ward. He had no foundation and was a bit unstable during that first bit of it. About nine months later she read a book about this type of thing and went and checked him out of the ward. That's when they started a serious spiritual path!!

I have lost interest in this conversation. I have taken very high dose and achieved peak experiences. Nothing I am going to say is going to change your mind and honestly I don't even want to change your mind. I don't even care about the topic of psychedelics-- I only entered into this part of the discussion to show that psychedelics are not the cause of all mystical religion.

Do it the way you're doing it man and may the best outcome happen for you.

The fact that you don't care about the topic shows you might not have had 'peak experience". Because I have had it, and the way I know is that I was so far from everyday reality that I had no recognition of myself. This happened the first time I ate mushrooms at the age of 15. It was dark, and we just laid around at night tripping absolute balls. We even erupted into spontaneous chanting, something none of us had done before, it was completely instinctual and natural. I went into crazy geometric rooms in my head, because once most stimuli were gone like light and sound and talking and human interaction, there was nowhere left to go except outward and inward at the same time. It was extremely scary and I thought it would be permanent. But eventually I just gave way to the force and became just a floating being, traveling through dream-trip states. Anyone who has been in these states knows it's by far the most important and significant experiences of their lives. You just cant get there even with intensive meditation. Even when trying to clear the mind by meditating, the thought patterns and neural networks are not modulated to anywhere near the extent of hard tripping. It's very debilitating, because when reality escapes you, you leave yourself open to trouble, and in fact in college I lost control and ended up handcuffed to a hospital bed with a catheter coming out of my pee hole and tripping nuts even when pumped full of Thorazine.

That's the power of psychedelics. They are the end all be all of psychonautic exploitation. Have you ever heard of someone almost dying from meditation? I don't care what kind of "energies" are harnessed, people don't freak out and get in fights with cops because of meditation.hallucinogenics are much much more powerful as a modulator to consciousness than anything out there, in both good and bad ways. Mediation will not get you to alice in wonderland fairy tale mushroom land where everything is tiny and sugary turquoise ripples float through the air and everything breaks down into evolving geometric patterns and every impulse, thought, word, sensation, emotion, memory, etc are modulated so far beyond their normal purpose that they cease to be recognizable. You cant easily put it into words, but it's not just your normal 5 senses that are drastically and violently changed. It's every single aspect of consciousness. Every part of the neural networks are short circuited.

The neural networks, as you know, normally form a filter of all the parts of consciousness and brain function in order to distill it down into a single entity which is everyday consciousness, a product of animal survival and evolution. All of our sense are evolved to filter out everything but only the most important and crucial information we need to survive.

If we didn't have this filter, we would never be able to focus or do anything, because there would be way too much information and stimuli constantly coming at us and we wouldn't be able to process it (which is why schizophrenics can't function). Psychedelics break down these networks and thus the filter is opened. The brain is no longer the black box we use it for, and now we start to see the inner workings and how out neurotransmitters function when they have short circuited. The hardware, like the sense organs and brain sections like the speech center are still relatively intact and function the same but the way the brain usually treats and filters the electrochemical messages is gone, hence the visual and other sensory modulations.

This is the real deal, real spirituality, which I define as consciousness exploration, and you go further out from normal reality than any other practice, and it's scientifically proven why. Meditation has some scientifically explained effects on the brain, but any neuroscientist will tell you it is nothing compared to psychedelics when it comes to how much the brain patterns are altered. Of course this makes it just as dangerous as it is useful, though, which is just like any other powerful thing like the atom bomb.

Funny that, I've never heard of the term '3HO'. Then I looked them up and found that this is Yogi Bhajan's group in New Mexico. We used to do performances there at the compound and I got to know several of the members and ex-members. They make a great spiced tea, that's for darn sure. Though Yogi Bhajan promoted celibacy until marriage, he himself was quite the secret womanizer (I know this from speaking to some of the women first hand). If you're going to live a non monogamous lifestyle, then be open and honest about it. No harm, no foul. But to say one thing and then sneak around behind the backs of your entire community... well that speaks volumes about the man.

I did not want to say it but the reason I lost interest in our conversation was that I could tell you were not reading my posts and seem hell bent on proving that only the people who use psychedelics are fully spiritual. You know that sounds a lot like the religious people so many are vehemently against..... I said I have no interest in arguing about psychedelics or demonizing them except so far as to show that they are not the only way to get into these states and that these states do not have full effect without some other things in place, one poster referred to it as foundation. That is just as far as my interest in discussing psychedelics goes. God bless you for the experiences you have had.

You said--

"The fact that you don't care about the topic shows you might not have had 'peak experience". Because I have had it, and the way I know is that I was so far from everyday reality that I had no recognition of myself. This happened the first time I ate mushrooms at the age of 15. It was dark, and we just laid around at night tripping absolute balls. We even erupted into spontaneous chanting, something none of us had done before, it was completely instinctual and natural. I went into crazy geometric rooms in my head, because once most stimuli were gone like light and sound and talking and human interaction, there was nowhere left to go except outward and inward at the same time. It was extremely scary and I thought it would be permanent. But eventually I just gave way to the force and became just a floating being, traveling through dream-trip states. Anyone who has been in these states knows it's by far the most important and significant experiences of their lives. You just cant get there even with intensive meditation. Even when trying to clear the mind by meditating, the thought patterns and neural networks are not modulated to anywhere near the extent of hard tripping. It's very debilitating, because when reality escapes you, you leave yourself open to trouble, and in fact in college I lost control and ended up handcuffed to a hospital bed with a catheter coming out of my pee hole and tripping nuts even when pumped full of Thorazine."

I added emphasis to your post just to show you areas I have spoken specifically about on this thread and you don't seem to have read them. We can't have a conversation if you aren't reading what I am writing.... I am not going to go back into your other posts but there have been three or four other things you have said that show you aren't reading what I am writing. I am also not going to repost information that is missed. Religious literature is chock full of encounters such as yours and even more far reaching, especially when considering states vs stages... That is just a plain fact man. There are countless accounts just like these and even more complete from many of the world's religious traditions. In Christian mysticism there are saints who gained permanent access to some of these states and being overwhelmed by the experiences is considered to be a sign of a lack of purification that goes away with time. I don't think you have read these accounts at all. There are many more from the Hindu tradition also... and others.... I am surprised that you think otherwise since there is so much literature on the subject...

There is so much literature on the subject in fact that there are books written only to describe the subtle differences between the many different dimensions of access to peak experince. Ken Wilber speaks of them as being very very common... Some of them compare and contrast the different penetrations into this mystery across religions. "Bede Griffiths, an introduction to his interspiritual thought." by Wayne Teasdale is one such example but there are so many others.

I am sorry if anything I have said in previous posts has made you angry or was unthoughtful. I was only clumsily trying to share my experince in this area and of course it is limited in many ways, but most of all by me. And I was only trying to make one point. That there are many ways into this space. I assume your experiences are valid man. I really do mean that-- I am not playing with you. Respectfully, I do think it would be good for you to expose yourself to literature about various saints and mystics who clearly did get into these places just so you won't think psychedelics are the only way in.

On a synth topic-- anyone who has two or more Mother 32's and who has connected them to play as one synth please PM me. When I hook mine together to play them as one synth one of the synths plays at a higher octave than the other even though they are set to the same octave. I cannot figure it out.